New traffic signal – Newark & Hudson

It’s OFFICIAL! The light is now in full service. I guess that accident yesterday made them finally pull the switch. Come back here later to discuss how it’s affected traffic downtown.

10/26/2007:

“We have ignition!”

A reader send this blurry clip in of the freshly powered up traffic signal at the intersection of Newark & Hudson. It’s just “blinking” red & yellow now (I guess to acclimate drivers of the pending signal.. like they didn’t know it was sitting there for months already).

See previous updates and reader mail below…

10/11/2007 Reader Mail:

Can someone explain how hard it is to switch on the signal? I do know there is some amount of programming to sync the light with other signals in the area, but what is the hold up? Who manages our traffic signals? What software do they use? SYNCHRO? BiTrans? Streetwise? MATS? Is this person on vacation? Do we outsource the signal maintenance?

“Dear Hoboken411,

After yet another near-miss with several cars this morning at the crosswalk at Hudson and Newark, I’m writing to ask WHY after MONTHS of those traffic lights being installed are they NOT turned on?!!

If you ask the Mayor’s office, he blames the City Council. If you ask the City Council, they blame the county. If you ask Hoboken’s representative on the County Board of Freeholders, Maurice Fitzgibbons, he says he doesn’t know and ask the city.

Perhaps if 411 asks the question, someone will take action and do their jobs and TURN ON THE TRAFFIC LIGHT!

Thank you.”

– One of the thousands of daily PATH Commuters

9/30/2007 Update:

Took these pictures Friday of a whole “crew” installing “Do Not Enter” signs. I’m surprised they didn’t bring in a crane & a pile-driver and shut the road down for a week.

8/9/2007 Update:

Mentioned this new traffic signal back in April. They’ve installed the fixtures and are about ready to ramp it up. They’ll start with some blinking lights in the next few days(may be problematic for epileptics, fyi) and will start the normal signals soon thereafter.

Traffic backups will be worse than ever in my opinion. Additionally, savvy and impatient pedestrians will find other crosswalks to bombard while on their cell phones and fiddling with their iPods. Joy to the world.

See the original post below.. plus all the previous comments.

In the long run, we should just install 2,000 stop lights in Hoboken. Soon to be the #1 road rage capital of the world (overtaking L.A. by 217%).

4/17/2007:
A new traffic light is going up at Newark and Hudson. It’s a heavily trafficked area for both vehicles and especially pedestrians during the morning and evening rush hours.

I believe this is sorely needed, but how will the mobs of commuters be able to stand still for 45 seconds? Will they find some other intersection to cross at? What about traffic? Will it back up somehow and cause problems elsewhere?

While costly (and probably ugly), a pedestrian bridge might be a better idea.

personalt, you’re asking people who sound like they don’t even have a college education, to do math??? to have basic forethought.
shame on you, this is old-school hoboken. nepotism and voting down the line, just like grandma did in 1890

come on people! this is just like the $95,000.00 the city paid for 2 stupid street clocks (one in front of city hall).
they over pay for something that never went out for bid so they can payoff a friend/relative/contributor…and they get a kickback under the table. same thing with the camera’s i’m sure. $70,000.00 for 2 cameras that should cost $20,000.00 and they get $2000.00 back under the table because they are so f’n stupid. like letting a developer slip in 2 extra floors on a building (the 2 office buildings with the pyramids on them) for a lousy $10k contribution…and the builder makes $4 million dollars. these moron’s in cityhall should be locked up.

$72,000 for two cameras.. you gotta be kidding me.. I have a professional camera sofware package for a consruction site I oversee. The software is of the level that is used in Vegas casinos. Vegas has some fairly strict rules on the quality of the cameras and software. I paid under $3,000 for software/license for 9 cameras. Extra cameras licenses are under $300 each(software only). I have $600 cameras that would work fine or you could get the super industrial version for with a really tight zoom lense for under $2500 This bad boy is set up on top of a building way up, and if you zoom in, no problem can you pick up license plate numbers webcamproshop.com/Dotworkz-2-4GHz-S...kick-Wireless-Package-p/wi-0924.htm That camera costs $2500.. Getting the best of the best you could set up the camera and the software for $8,000 with another $2,500 for a PC and some big ass harddrives to keep 30 days worth. $11,000 in total. Depening on how the network worked you may want to add some sort of wireless link but even a top of the line setup there only adds $1500 per camera. webcamproshop.com/Dotworkz-2-4GHz-S...kick-Wireless-Package-p/wi-0924.htm Even with the top of the line camera and some sort of wireless network you would be under $15K. How the hell did they spent $70K on a two camera solution? I would be willing to bet, on top of that the cameras that bought are sub $1,000 models since you really dont need pan/tilt/zoom.. you just set it in… Read more »

[quote comment=”53514″]
Meaning, the light needs to stay and we need the police to enforce jaywalking statutes and not enforce cameras.[/quote]

Well, I was kinda’ expecting to hear at the next city council meeting that the Council would start discussing installing “jaywalking cameras” at selected intersections, approve the plan without knowing the legality or the cost; and then find out weeks later that these cameras had already been installed and operating all along – making the council’s discussions a phony farce at best, or flat-out lies to the public at worst.
Ordinarily I’d be amazed if you told me that a city’s leaders did not know how much a piece of equipment would cost- even though they already bought it a couple months earlier. But then again, this is Hoboken.